After spending nearly 4 hours at the dealership, I finally have resolution to the fiasco that has been my initial FEH experience. We ended up with the dealership founder's grandson, Nathan, helping us. When the asst GM called yesterday, he neglected to tell DH that yes, we would have to pay the $1100 difference in the invoice price. So we went round on that one and finally went ahead and agreed. Especially after having heard what caused all of the electrical problems with my first FEH. The one thing that I did notice on the way home was that the radio was not the satellite equipped ones, so we'll take care of that aftermarket.

Okay, here's what happened: A screw in the electrical harness came loose and fell out causing the cables to rub, fray and short out two known components. They have no idea what all was effected by this massive shorting out, but it worried the dealership enough to go ahead and initiate the buy-back of my original FEH. All of this was caused by one loose freakin' screw! Can you believe that??? Henry went back to get what few things I had in the first FEH and said that it was still in pieces in the repair bay. There was no way that it would have been ready before Monday or Tuesday and that was a conservative estimate barring nothing else being found wrong with it.

So was it worth my paying the additional $1100 to get an '06? I think so. I had only paid $1000 over invoice on the first one, so I got a good deal on it to begin with. So in the end, after the deals and the extended warranty, we paid roughly $31k after taxes and all the fees were added in. All I can say is that I do NOT want to have to do this again. Nathan made sure that we understood the whole Tires For Life thing and the maintenence schedule (which was more than the first salesman had done). He even installed our daughter's booster seat in the back seat for me. He put the etched numbers on all of the windows for us (that didn't get done on the other FEH).

Funny enough, though, he didn't know about the '05's not needing the "super key" (that's what my daughter called it) to start the FEH. He did ask what user groups that I belonged to and I told him about this one and about greenhybrid.com. He also told me about a new hybrid that Ford will be coming out with in the next year or so that will not have an all-gas version at all. It will be strictly a hybrid line. He sounded really enthusiastic about it and was more than happy to make sure that we were totally happy before we left.

So keep your fingers crossed that this '06 gets the job done!
Tammy